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Godzilla
Godzilla, known as the King of the Monsters, is a giant radioactive prehistoric reptile that is the star of the popular Godzilla franchise of films produced by Toho Company, Ltd. Since his introduction in 1954, Godzilla has become a worldwide pop-culture icon and to this date has starred in 29 films, the most recent being an American-made reboot produced by Legendary Pictures. Appearance Godzilla's appearance varies from film to film, but he has always resembled a giant bipedal reptilian creature that stands upright like a human. Godzilla has three rows of maple leaf-shaped dorsal plates running down his back and generally possesses charcoal gray-colored skin. In the Showa series, Godzilla is 50 meters tall, 100 meters long, and weighs 20,000 tons. From The Return of Godzilla to Godzilla vs. Biollante, Godzilla is 80 meters tall, 190 meters long, and weighs 50,000 tons. From Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah to Godzilla vs. Destoroyah, Godzilla is 100 meters tall, 212.5 meters long, and weighs 60,000 tons. In Godzilla 2000, Godzilla vs. Megaguirus, and the Kiryu Saga, Godzilla is 55 meters tall, 122.5 meters long, and weighs 25,000 tons. In Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, Godzilla is 60 meters tall, 120 meters long, and weighs 30,000 tons. In Godzilla: Final Wars, Godzilla is 100 meters tall, 100 meters long, and weighs 55,000 tons. In Legendary Pictures' reboot, Godzilla is 108.2 meters tall, 167.7 meters long, and weighs 90,000 tons. Origins Godzilla's origins are not always specifically explored in every continuity, but he has always been a type of prehistoric creature that was awakened by nuclear testing in the 1950's. In the Showa series and presumably most of the Millennium series, Godzilla was a type of intermediary animal between sea and land-dwelling prehistoric reptiles that retreated deep underwater after the Cretaceous extinction and was awakened, burned, and enhanced by the Hydrogen bomb. In the Heisei series, Godzilla was a type of dinosaur called a Godzillasaurus that survived into the 1940's living in the Marshall Islands. Time travelers from the future moved the Godzillasaurus to the Bering Sea, only for it to be exposed to radiation from a Russian submarine and become Godzilla sometime presumably in the 1970's. In GMK, Godzilla is a prehistoric animal that is possessed by the lost souls of people who died during World War II to punish Japan for its sins. In the Legendary series, Godzilla is a type of giant amphibious reptile from the Permian that fed on radiation on the Earth's surface and retreated deep underwater following the Permian extinction. Godzilla was then awakened by an American nuclear submarine in 1954. History Showa Era The Showa series, called the "first series" in Japan, began in 1954 with the original Godzilla and ended in 1975 with Terror of Mechagodzilla. The Showa films have somewhat loose continuity and rarely refer to the events of previous films. Godzilla is generally portrayed as a heroic monster in the Showa series starting with Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, though from Godzilla to Mothra vs. Godzilla he was mostly villainous. ''Godzilla'' ''Godzilla Raids Again'' ''King Kong vs. Godzilla'' ''Mothra vs. Godzilla'' ''Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster'' ''Invasion of the Astro-Monster'' ''Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster'' ''Son of Godzilla'' ''Destroy All Monsters'' ''All Monsters Attack'' ''Godzilla vs. Hedorah'' ''Godzilla vs. Gigan'' ''Godzilla vs. Megalon'' ''Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla'' ''Terror of Mechagodzilla'' Heisei Era The Heisei series, called the "VS series" in Japan, is the second series of Godzilla films that began in 1984 with The Return of Godzilla and ended in 1995 with Godzilla vs. Destoroyah. The Heisei films are generally more serious and darker in tone compared to the Showa films. The Heisei films are a complete reboot from the Showa films and only share continuity with the original Godzilla, ignoring all of its sequels. The Heisei films also share closely-knit continuity with each other and frequently make references to events from the previous film. The Heisei movies also attempt to provide social commentary on issues such as the Cold War, genetic engineering, Japan-U.S. relations, deforestation, and other issues. Godzilla is portrayed as a menacing anti-hero in the Heisei series rather than the benevolent superhero of the Showa films, but shows a gentler side sometimes and is said to possess human feelings and emotions. ''The Return of Godzilla'' ''Godzilla vs. Biollante'' ''Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah'' ''Godzilla vs. Mothra'' ''Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla 2'' ''Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla'' ''Godzilla vs. Destoroyah'' Millennium Era The Millennium series, called the "X series" in Japan, was produced in response to the failed American remake by TriStar Pictures in 1998, which featured the monster Zilla in place of Godzilla. In response to fan outrage, Toho rebooted Godzilla again in 1999 with Godzilla 2000. The Millennium series ended in 2004 with Godzilla: Final Wars. The Millennium films with the exception of the Kiryu Saga are each standalone and share no continuity with each other. The Millennium films for the most part all reference the 1954 original film, but offer alternate possibilities such as the first Godzilla surviving the Oxygen Destroyer, returning as an undead creature, or being converted into a robot. The Millennium films are mostly characterized by featuring a feral redesign of Godzilla with huge jagged dorsal spines, a long crocodilian snout, and a hunched-over stance. The Millennium films maintain a serious tone like the Heisei series and portray Godzilla as a menacing force of nature, but remove many of the subplots and other elements of the Heisei films. ''Godzilla 2000'' ''Godzilla vs. Megaguirus'' ''Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack'' ''Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla'' ''Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. ''Godzilla: Final Wars Legendary Era The Legendary series is the first series to be made by a company other than Toho, being made by the American company Legendary Pictures. The Legendary series consists so far of only one movie, Godzilla from 2014, but a sequel entitled Godzilla 2 is confirmed for release in 2018. The Legendary series attempts to establish Godzilla in a grounded universe and shares no continuity with any other film in the series, even the original. Godzilla himself is portrayed as a majestic godly being, and possesses a heroic persona in line with his late-Showa incarnation. ''Godzilla'' ''Godzilla 2'' Abilities * Atomic Breath - Godzilla's signature ability is to spit a superheated beam of concentrated radioactive plasma from his mouth. The radiation is presumably contained within glands inside his dorsal spines, as they glow before he releases the beam. Godzilla's atomic breath has varied in strength and appearance, but is usually portrayed as a thick, blue beam. * Hyper Spiral Ray - A more powerful variation of Godzilla's atomic breath, the spiral ray can only be fired when Godzilla is under extreme stress or has absorbed a considerable amount of power. It is a red beam that is wrapped in a yellow electrical spiral and has the power to completely destroy powerful enemies like Super-Mechagodzilla 2 and Keizer Ghidorah. * Nuclear Pulse - Godzilla can release a powerful shockwave of nuclear energy from his entire body, which is useful when he is restrained or in close combat with a foe. * Energy Absorption - Godzilla has a remarkable capacity for absorbing energy. Godzilla naturally feeds on radiation, but can also draw power from plasma or electricity. Godzilla was also able to absorb the life force of Rodan and be completely revitalized enough to destroy Super-Mechagodzilla 2. Godzilla also once displayed the ability to absorb enemy attacks and project the energy back at the source using his atomic breath, which he did to defeat King Ghidorah in GMK. * Durability - Godzilla's hide is nearly indestructible and is not damaged at all by conventional weapons. Few of Godzilla's opponents can pierce Godzilla's skin and draw blood. Only Gigan and Mechagodzilla were able to consistently do so. Godzilla has taken on two miniature black holes before and survived both with no visible damage. Godzilla also survived a direct hit from an energy beam at absolute zero. * Regeneration - Godzilla's cells are virtually immortal and allow him to regenerate from almost any wound, including being completely disintegrated or blown to smithereens. Godzilla's regeneration is due to a substance in his cells known as Organizer G1, which has proven to be highly mutagenic to other creatures, such as Biollante and Orga. * Super Strength - Godzilla possesses incredible strength, allowing him to lift and throw opponents several times his size with ease. * Tail - Godzilla uses his tail as a bludgeoning weapon against enemies. Godzilla's tail is incredibly strong, even being able to support his entire weight and allow him to slide on it. Godzilla's tail has also been shown to be prehensile. * Flight - By firing his atomic breath directly at the ground, Godzilla can actually propel himself into the air and take flight. * Intelligence - While humans often assume Godzilla is a wild brutish animal, Godzilla has demonstrated intelligence on par with, if not exceeding, human intelligence. Godzilla is able to fully communicate with other giant monsters by speaking a language of roars and grunts that only giant monsters understand. Godzilla employs strategy in battle against more powerful foes and has found and exploited scientific weaknesses in his opponents that even humans were not aware of. Examples would be when Godzilla destroyed SpaceGodzilla's power source in the Fukuoka Tower and when he allowed himself to be eaten by Orga so he could reach its core and destroy it so Orga could not regenerate. * Psychic Abilities - Godzilla is said to be the most powerful psychic in the world and is able to sense danger or the exact location where he needs to be at any time. Godzilla is able to telepathically communicate with Godzilla Junior and can locate him wherever he is. Weaknesses Although Godzilla is essentially immortal and has proven to be the most powerful monster in the world, he has several exploitable weaknesses. * Oxygen Destroyer - The Oxygen Destroyer is a device that converts oxygen molecules into a highly corrosive substance capable of disintegrating any organic matter. This device was used on the first Godzilla in 1954 and reduced him to a skeleton in a matter of seconds. However, it seems that the Oxygen Destroyer was only effective against the first Godzilla, as the Heisei incarnation of Godzilla was able to withstand repeated attacks from the monster Destoroyah, whose powers contain all of the power of the Oxygen Destroyer only magnified. In other continuities, Godzilla even survived or completely regenerated from the Oxygen Destroyer. * Electricity - Godzilla possessed an aversion to extremely high voltages of electricity. King Kong was even able to defeat Godzilla using his electrical attacks. Eventually, Godzilla gained a mastery over electricity and it became a power source for him rather than a weakness. * Cadmium - Because Godzilla's heart is a nuclear reactor, scientists proposed that the element cadmium, which is used to cool down nuclear reactors, might shut down his heart. The warcraft Super-X fired cadmium shells down Godzilla's throat and successfully stopped his heart, but only temporarily. Godzilla's immune system was able to overcome the effects of the cadmium and he soon regained consciousness. Still, cadmium continued to be an effective way to temporarily subdue Godzilla. * Anti-Nuclear Energy Bacteria - This bio-weapon, abbreviated as ANEB, was engineered from enzymes within Godzilla's own cells. The ANEB was effective in removing radiation from Godzilla's body and rendering him extremely weak. It did not kill Godzilla as scientists had hoped, but forced him to go dormant underwater until he absorbed massive amounts of radiation from a nuclear submarine and overcame the ANEB. * G-Crusher - The plan code-named "G-Crusher" was designed to destroy the bundle of nerve tissue, or "brain," in Godzilla's hip area that gave him control over his lower body. G-Crusher utilized Mechagodzilla2's shock anchor cables to destroy the nerve bundle and cripple Godzilla, leaving him helpless against Mechagodzilla's attacks. Thankfully for Godzilla, Rodan's sacrifice regenerated the brain and allowed Godzilla to survive and defeat Mechagodzilla. *'Meltdown' - If the nuclear fission in Godzilla's heart goes out of control, he becomes a ticking doomsday clock. After becoming Burning Godzilla, Godzilla is much more powerful, but if his internal temperature reaches 12,000 degrees Celsius his heart will undergo a nuclear meltdown and he will implode. Godzilla's meltdown completely destroyed Godzilla, however his energy lived on and reincarnated him through his son. * Emotional Weaknesses - Some of Godzilla's more cruel enemies like Destoroyah and SpaceGodzilla utilized Godzilla's emotional connection to his adopted son Godzilla Junior as a way to attack him. SpaceGodzilla attacked Junior to draw Godzilla to him and later imprisoned Junior in front of Godzilla, taunting him. Destoroyah took this one step further and mercilessly killed Junior in cold blood right in front of Godzilla. Though these moves successfully harmed Godzilla emotionally, it was ultimately his anger and determination for vengeance that allowed him to overcome these enemies. Forms Godzillasaurus Before being irradiated by the hydrogen bomb, Godzilla was a type of dinosaur called a Godzillasaurus. Godzillasaurus is 12 meters tall, 20 meters long, and weighs 60 tons. Godzillasaurus looks similar to a tyrannosaurus, but with longer arms, a longer neck, a slightly smaller head, and a more upright stance. Other Godzillasauruses existed in prehistoric times, but Godzilla and Godzilla Junior are presumed to be the only remaining members of the species. Super Godzilla After absorbing King Ghidorah's cells and a substance called S-Energy, Godzilla reaches a much more powerful form called Super Godzilla. Super Godzilla is 110 meters tall, 180 meters long, and weighs 80,000 tons. As Super Godzilla, Godzilla has tusks on the sides of his mouth, a crown on his head, spikes on his shoulders, and a fluorescent green glow all over his body. Super Godzilla has a more powerful version of his atomic breath called nova breath and can fire a powerful energy blast from his navel. Burning Godzilla When his heart is overloaded with nuclear energy, Godzilla reaches a state of critical mass and becomes covered in glowing red rashes and his eyes become bright red. As Burning Godzilla, Godzilla becomes considerably more powerful and his atomic breath is replaced with the hyper spiral ray. However, if Godzilla's internal temperature reaches 12,000 degrees Celsius, his heart will enter meltdown and cause Godzilla to implode like a dying star. Burning Godzilla theoretically has enough power contained in his overloaded heart to cause a Big Crunch and destroy the universe, but the humans used freezer weapons to minimize the damage from his meltdown and prevented this scenario. Trivia *Godzilla's Japanese name, Gojira, is a combination of the Japanese words "gorira" (gorilla), and "kujira" (whale). Godzilla was given this name because at one point his designed was said to look like a cross between a gorilla and a whale. Toho stuck with the name even after Godzilla's designed was finalized as a reptilian creature because he blended the huge size and aquatic lifestyle of a whale and the bipedal stance, intelligence, and strength of a gorilla. *The original Godzilla film was originally conceived to star a Giant Octopus, a giant gorilla, and later Anguirus, but after taking inspiration from The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms Toho decided to make the monster a giant prehistoric reptilian creature. *Godzilla was conceived as a metaphor for the atomic bomb and the horrific destruction it brought upon Japan. Ishiro Honda was a strong pacifist and intended Godzilla to be an allegory to discourage nuclear proliferation. *Godzilla, according to his creators, was never meant to be an evil or truly malicious creature, but a tragic victim of nuclear testing that would punish mankind for its folly. Over time, Godzilla evolved as a character and even became a heroic character serving as a force of nature defending Earth from threats, both terrestrial and extraterrestrial. * Due to Godzilla's international popularity, Toho decided in the 1970's to allow an American film studio to produce their own Godzilla film. The first project, Godzilla: King of the Monsters 3-D, fell through and Toho rebooted the Godzilla series themselves in 1984. In the 1990's, Toho sold Godzilla's film rights to TriStar Pictures. The original project featured a genetically engineered guardian Godzilla battling an alien creature called the Gryphon. TriStar aborted the project for budgetary reasons and hired Independence Day director Roland Emmerich to make a Godzilla movie. In 1998, TriStar released a film that featured a radically redesigned, animalistic, asexual, mutated iguana that was killed by conventional weaponry in place of the traditional Godzilla, drawing heavy backlash from fans of Godzilla and Toho executives alike. Toho rebooted the Godzilla series the following year in response to fan backlash. They later renamed the creature from the 1998 film "Zilla," claiming it "took the 'God' out of 'Godzilla,'" and had the real Godzilla kill it on screen in a one-sided battle in the movie Godzilla: Final Wars. After putting the series on hiatus in 2004, Toho entrusted Yoshimitsu Banno, the director of Godzilla vs. Hedorah, with the film rights to Godzilla and allowed him to approach American filmmakers to make a new film. Banno planned to make an IMAX short film called Godzilla 3-D to the Max but was unable to acquire enough funding. Banno approached Legendary Pictures and proposed a new full-length American Godzilla film. Toho formally sold the film rights to Legendary and provided tighter restrictions on the portrayal of Godzilla so as to avoid a repeat of the 1998 film. In 2014, Legendary and Warner Brothers released Godzilla in theaters, making it the first truly official American Godzilla film. *Godzilla has appeared in numerous non-film media over the years, including comic books, video games, and television shows. *Godzilla received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, making him the only fictional character to hold a star there. *The Godzilla series is the longest running film series of all time. *Godzilla was portrayed by an actor in a suit in every Godzilla film from 1954 to 2004. In the 2014 American reboot, Godzilla was portrayed through full CGI for the first time, not counting a cameo in the Toho film Always: Sunset on Third Street 2. 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